Non-Fatal Shooting Defendant to Consider Plea Offer Overnight

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A 43-year-old defendant could not decide whether to accept or reject the prosecution’s plea offer on Sept. 18 before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa M. Phinn.

Thomas Carol Royal will sleep on the prosecution’s offer of four years, suspending all but two years, with three years of supervised probation for illegal possession of a regulated firearm. Royal would also have to register as a gun offender and receive 144 days of credit for time he’s already served.

Royal and his attorney, Eric Berman, will formally decide on the offer on Sept. 20 before Judge Yolanda A. Tanner.

Royal is charged with first- and second-degree assault, firearm use in a felony violent crime, having a handgun on his person, discharging firearms, illegal possession of ammunition, firearm possession with a felony conviction, illegal possession of a regulated firearm, possession of a firearm in a drug offense and a scheme to maliciously destroy property valued over $1,000 in connection to an April 5 incident.